UCI's Wise, Maly-Karros singled out

UC Irvine basketball stars Eric Wise (men) and Mikah Maly-Karros (women) have been named to their respective six-player preseason All-Big West Conference teams in voting released Thursday.

The UCI men's and women's teams have been picked to finish sixth in the nine-team conference.

Wise, a 6-foot-6, 240-pound junior, earned second-team all-conference laurels each of his first two seasons. He led UCI in scoring (16.3 per game), rebounding (6.5 per game) and assists (3.0 per contest) last season, the first player in 37 seasons to do so.

UC Santa Barbara, which won the conference tournament last year after sharing the regular-season title with Pacific, topped the men's poll, earning 20 of 23 first-place votes. The Gauchos' 204 points bested Long Beach State (180 points and two first-place votes) and Pacific (161 points and one first-place vote).

Maly-Karros, a 6-1 junior forward, was a first-team All-Big West performer in her first season with UCI after transferring from Loyola Marymount. She led the conference in scoring (20.5 per game) and rebounding (11.1 per contest) and scored 41 points in the 'Eaters first-round conference tournament loss to Cal State Fullerton.